


blackmail the hostage

by whowhotellsyourstory



Series: Uncle Steve's Fix-it Freelance Gig (and friends) [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dora the Explorer - Freeform, Friendship, Gen, Gerald The Alpaca - Freeform, Insecurities, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Vacation, ambiguous ethics and morals, choo choo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 05:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20830349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whowhotellsyourstory/pseuds/whowhotellsyourstory
Summary: "You lied to and then body-slammed a cripple.""Don't exaggerate, you could kick my ass ten ways to Sunday if you wanted to. Besides, in a way, isn't Tony always in trouble? Wasn't a lie.""I'm gonna kick your ass eleven ways to Sunday right now if you don't stop the car."-Rhodey's been kidnapped. No, really.





	blackmail the hostage

“Tony's in trouble. Come quick.”

It was a sad fact of life that those words had featured in a plurality of Rhodey’s most memorable days so far. They also tended to turn up in the most unexpected of places – for instance, in Tony's supposedly empty house where Rhodey was feeding Gerald, the alpaca, which alone made the day memorable enough already.

Rhodey straightened up speedily – across the grass and Morgan's tent, a lanky, sandy-haired boy was leaning over the railing on the Starks' porch. His wide eyes were staring; Rhodey stared back. Gerald hummed in the background like an obnoxious drone.

“Is that an alpaca?” the teenager said, distracted. “They live in _New York_, what is the _matter_ with him?”

Gerald crossed all four limbs and plopped his long neck and head on the grass, possibly offended. Rhodey strolled up to the porch, snapping out of his bewilderment long enough to remember he should probably be concerned about the intruder in his best friend’s house.

“Wh-?”

He was interrupted. “Tony's in trouble,” the kid repeated like a mantra. “Come quick.”

And then he snatched Rhodey by the arm and dragged him halfway to a car that had definitely not been parked in Tony's driveway when Rhodey had arrived. He opened the door before it occurred to Rhodey to regain control over the situation.

“Who the hell are you?” he finally managed to say.

The kid attempted to push him into the car, which was cute, so Rhodey scowled, but didn’t budge. It drew a big sigh of exasperation out of the kid, which, in turn, made some muscle around Rhodey's temple twitch. The car door was still open. “I’m Harley.”

“I’m Beyoncé,” Rhodey growled back irritably. “Who the hell are you?”

What followed next happened in very quick succession, almost to the point where Rhodey had trouble keeping track of it. The boy who was now called Harley hooked his ankle behind Rhodey's knee brace, which did not lock fast enough – a weak point that, as far as Rhodey was aware, only Tony knew about. He followed this very underhanded move by bodily maneuvering Rhodey into the passenger seat and locking the door behind him.

“I’m the boy who cried wolf, Beyoncé,” Harley said, sliding behind the wheel and backing out of the driveway. Rhodey kept a hand on his mistreated leg while he glared at the kid.

“Tony is _not _in trouble,” Rhodey concluded, because he was rather smart. “And _you _are one of his Santa’s little helpers.”

Harley shrugged, not looking remotely repentant over his mistreatment of a cripple. “It's all about how you look at it. I mean, his best friend refused to go on vacation with him. That'll stress a guy out.” He said nothing to Rhodey's second accusation.

“Hold up, did he put you up to this?” Rhodey said, aghast. Harley was too busy flickering on the right turn signal to answer him. He quickly turned on the other one instead when he realized he meant to go left.

“No one puts the boy who cried wolf up to anything, his hubris is his alone.”

Somewhere around the sides of Rhodey’s head, a steady pressure was building. “You know, I get the feeling the name _Peter _is taken, for a kid in your position.”

Harley gave him a side-eye. “I told you. I’m Harley.”

“Have you ever actually _heard_ the story of the boy who cried wolf?”

“Have you ever picked a topic of conversation and stuck to it?”

Rhodey scowled. “Oh, I am _way _too old to deal with a teenage version of Tony Stark all over again. You have five seconds to let me out of the car.”

“Listen, I'm gonna be straight with you,” Harley said seriously, sounding like a normal person all of a sudden. “We both know that if you'd wanted to leave, you'd have gotten rid of me already.”

Rhodey had no answer to that. Some sort of informed resignation was creeping up on him – everything this kid said and did just reminded him of Tony more and more strongly, which happened to be the most effective way to get Rhodey to do something stupid. The engine whined pitifully while Harley scrambled wildly with the pedals. Rhodey gave his own face a vigorous rub-down.

“You ever driven stick?” he asked calmly.

“Not even once,” Harley replied just as calmly. “Not counting the drive over.” Once again, Rhodey had a vision of a reckless teenager he met at MIT.

The last rustic, sheltered traces of Tony's property were disappearing in the rearview mirror; Rhodey was glad that he had had the presence of mind to lock Gerald's enclosure behind him, as well as the front door. Really, the only thing of Tony’s currently in an uncertain and possibly dangerous situation was Rhodey himself, and apparently, he was too curious to do anything about it. Harley swerved to avoid a leaf, swimming erratically in the wind, and Rhodey's stomach lurched accordingly.

“I feel like this is a rhetorical question,” Rhodey said after a minute of inexplicable silence, “but what the hell is happening right now?”

“You’re resigned to this whatever I say, yeah?” Harley checked.

Rhodey stared back in response. “Yes.” The kid grinned. Rhodey’s road anxiety mounted. “_Eyes on the road._”

Harley launched into his proper explanation while merging into city traffic. “You know how Tony’s on vacation? We’re gonna join him.” It was a very short explanation.

“What? No,” Rhodey snapped automatically. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s taking time off to be with his family.”

“Yeah,” Harley agreed slowly, like he thought Rhodey was stupid. “And we’re invited.”

“You are?”

The kid sported an offended expression in response to that. “Don’t project your insecurities on me.”

Rhodey might have done or said something to cause bodily harm then, if Harley hadn’t chosen that exact moment to let the engine die. A cacophony of noise erupted on the street, which startled the murderous intent out of him, along with the prickly, anxious thoughts the kid’s well-aimed jab had invited into Rhodey’s head. The driver of the car to their left made malicious and uninterrupted eye contact as he slowly overtook them.

Harley seemed shocked. “Man, New Yorkers are the _worst_.”

“Get out of the driver’s seat,” Rhodey grit out. “Now.”

“Oh, thanks, but that’s okay.” Harley restarted the ignition and started moving again; several minutes passed before the honking died down.

“No, it isn’t. Who gave you a damn license?”

“No idea, but if they’re sleeping at night, they shouldn’t be.”

Rhodey’s head hit the seat’s head rest. For the first time, he took in the car’s interior – the unsettling amount of fast food crumbs and wrappers littering every surface, the tools tucked into every nook and cranny (he was sure the type of screwdriver on the dashboard was something he’d only ever seen Tony use), and the inexplicable Dora the Explorer watch on the floormat under Rhodey’s feet. He picked it up because it was the only thing he could think to do about it.

Harley saw it. “That’s Tony’s,” he declared cheerfully.

“Alpacas and kids. He _has_ to adopt the weirdos,” Rhodey mumbled, turning the watch over in his hands. It was very pink all over. “You’d think the way he always follows Steve’s lead, he’d just get a goddamned dog.”

“There’s a dog?” Harley asked immediately. There was an ominous pause. “Should I kidnap the dog?” he wondered, apparently to himself.

“Drive,” Rhodey snapped back.

Harley perked up. “You’re on board now?”

“Maybe I just don’t wanna see you attempt to steal Captain America’s dog.”

Harley smirked at Rhodey and nearly shaved a street light off the asphalt. Rhodey closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and gripped the handhold tightly. By the time he opened them again, Harley was adding insult to injury by dialing a familiar number, instead of keeping his eyes on the road. He put it on speaker.

Tony picked up on the second ring. “_I gave you this number for emergencies,_” he said, the echo of his voice sounding like he was in a tall, wide open space, “_so you better be in jail, in the hospital, or in PE. Which is it?_”

“First of all, no, you did not,” Harley argued, “you gave it to me so I could, and I quote, let you know every time I saw ‘a guy in cowboy boots making moonshine in his bathtub’.”

“_Yeah, so I should really be getting at least a call a day, kid, what gives? I’m hurt._”

Rhodey interrupted Harley before he could speak. “Tony, who is this kid?”

There was a prolonged pause. “_Rhodey? What are you doing with Harley?_”

“Who the _hell _is Harley?”

“_I’m_ Harley,” the kid said again, exasperated. “I keep _telling _you.”

“No, I got that,” Rhodey snapped. “Who is _this kid_, who is called _Harley_?”

“_I would like to remove myself from whatever this narrative is._”

“You didn’t send him?”

“Nope,” Harley said. “I have a strong spirit of initiative.”

“_Send him to do what? What's going on?_”

Harley shrugged, and then, remembering Tony couldn’t see him, said, “I’m seeing the country. I know all sorts of New York disses now, you can't make fun of Tennessee anymore.”

“_Please don’t use the word ‘disses’, you're embarrassing me in front of War Machine. And are you driving?_” Tony asked incredulously, probably having heard the sound of the wind and the noisy engine over the line. Then he asked the question he clearly attached the most priority to. “_It's not an automatic, right?_”

“Of course not,” Harley assured him immediately.

“_Good. Also, since _when_ do you have a license?_” Tony demanded.

“Since yesterday. You should know, you paid for it,” the kid replied insolently. Tony completely ignored the second half of that statement.

“_And your first instinct was to drive across the country to go bother my best friend?_” Rhodey could hear the grin over the phone. “_That’s my boy._”

“Not literally, right, Tony?” Rhodey interjected apprehensively.

“_So when are you getting here?_” Tony said instead of replying, apparently catching on much faster than Rhodey.

“Excuse me?”

“Two or three days, tops,” Harley said without missing a beat.

“Days?! _What’re you doing, catching a train?_”

A dreamy look came over Harley's face. “Perfect. I’m getting bored of the car. Can you pay for that too?”

“_Yeah, sure thing._”

The line went dead. Rhodey stared at Harley, who stared back while pointedly shifting gears.

* * *

“We’re actually taking a train?”

Harley gave him a look that seemed to question Rhodey’s intelligence. “Well, I’m not driving all the way to California.”

Rhodey was familiar with this particular brand of stupidity. “You drove all the way to New York,” he pointed out.

But Harley was no longer paying attention. Penn station was packed; Rhodey had no idea so many people still had use for trains. The kid was weaving through the crowd, bags and suitcases littering his way, which made Rhodey sprint to keep him in sight. Some people clearly recognized him, from the way they pointed and yelled something inaudible, but for the most part, he was able to blend in with the confusion.

By the time Harley slowed down, he had somehow managed to cut in line over an indecent amount of people. Rhodey stared as the kid chatted briefly with a man behind a desk tagged ‘_Costumer Information_’, made the guy laugh, and then strode back to Rhodey’s side with a spring in his step.

“So it's gonna be a bit of a long trip-”

Rhodey’s annoyance came back with a vengeance and broke clean through his amazement. “No kidding,” he said sarcastically. “You're telling me you can't cross the country on a railroad and make it back in time for _The Jeffersons_?”

“How _old _are you?”

Rhodey scowled. “And how old are _you_, given that you understood my reference?”

“Oh, I didn’t,” Harley corrected him. “I just assumed it's some sort of old people show. Y'know, from context.”

“I’m very old,” Rhodey deadpanned. “About as old as Tony.”

“Yeah, he's pretty old,” Harley agreed, turning his gaze on the nearest giant billboard, which was announcing train times in blocky letters. “As I was saying – it’s a _really _long trip, and we’ll have to switch in Chicago. Larry said-”

“Who’s Larry?”

“Guy at the costumer info desk. He said-”

A random tourist nearly tripped over Harley, fixatedly looking at Rhodey. The kid squeaked when Rhodey pulled him out of the way, only just managing to catch the woman before she tumbled face-first into the floor.

“C’mon,” he said, tugging on Harley’s arm, and directed him toward the plastic seats, out of the crowd’s trampling way.

“So, it occurs to me that we didn’t discuss this explicitly,” Harley said as they sat down, patting his arm in what Rhodey chose to interpret as ‘thanks’, “but you’re still here. So can I assume you’re on board with taking a vacation? Tony wants you there.”

Rhodey let go of Harley’s arm and rubbed a crick out of his own neck. He wasn’t quite sure why he was still humoring the kid. Other than curiosity and the fact that he had nothing better to do, there was no good reason for him to not do a one-eighty and return to his apartment for an extremely uneventful evening. There was also the fact that Harley was clearly an unescorted, reckless minor, but the kid had already proved to be a wily, quick-witted one. For lack of better rationalization, however, that was the excuse Rhodey was sticking to.

“I don’t have any luggage on me,” he said anyway, “and my fridge is full of fresh fruit and vegetables.”

“Well, if it’s in the fridge, it should be good for at least a month.” Rhodey’s face contorted in a disgusted grimace, but Harley paid him no mind. “But that’s a good point about the luggage, though. We should get you a toothbrush.”

“A toothbrush,” Rhodey repeated. “Yes, exactly. Soon as I get a toothbrush, problem solved. All I need is-”

“A toothbrush, yes, we’ve established that,” Harley waved him off impatiently. “Let’s go.”

Warily, Rhodey looked up at the billboard announcing train departures to Chicago. “Kid-”

“Again,” Harley interrupted, following his gaze, “if you _wanted _to say no-”

“Yeah,” Rhodey said loudly, “I would’ve said no. Point taken. Fine. We’re going to Malibu to hijack Tony’s vacation.”

“Cool,” Harley beamed. He seemed perfectly okay with declaring the matter resolved with this off-the-cuff plan. “But seriously, let’s go get that toothbrush.”

“Your dental hygiene ethic is inconsistent with every other display of responsibility you’ve failed to live up to today.”

* * *

One brand new toothbrush later, Rhodey and Harley rejoined the throng of people at the station. Harley had clearly prepared for this; he was wearing an oversized hoodie and sneakers, but he was also carrying a backpack over his shoulder, presumably packed with summer wear. Rhodey, who had dressed to feed an alpaca that morning with no idea what feeding an alpaca entailed, was feeling very apprehensive about the only outfit he was taking to Malibu in beach weather – jeans and a very old polo.

The kid adjusted his bag and stuffed his hands into his hoodie’s front pocket, as though to illustrate Rhodey’s mental point. Another passing tourist gaped at Rhodey and crashed into someone’s back, causing a major disturbance in the human traffic line. This time, it was Harley who dragged Rhodey away.

“You gotta go buy the tickets,” he said, apparently only just remembering that detail. “What? I didn’t bring any money.”

Rhodey gave Harley a very mistrustful look, understood the kid was lying, and took off to buy tickets.

He used the card Tony had given him, because it was _his _kid that Rhodey was putting up with. The tickets he bought were very carefully chosen and also very expensive – the trip would force them to travel overnight, so he booked an entire room with shower, amenities, and meals included. It had been a while since Rhodey had been forced to sleep in a bunk-bed, but this was what he got for having Tony in his life.

Harley was inappropriately impressed when they boarded their car, a few awkward hours later. “I get it now. Why rich people like being rich,” the kid elaborated, completely unnecessarily, in Rhodey’s opinion. He was looking over the air conditioning settings in fascination. “This is awesome.”

“Has Tony seriously never shown you the inside of one of his jets?”

Harley recoiled. “I hate flying.”

“And now I understand why I’m on a train.”

“I’ve been on an airplane once in my life,” he carried on, “several months ago. Only did it because I had a very good reason.”

“That’s great, kid,” Rhodey said disinterestedly. “I’m gonna get some food, because Tony’s paying for it. Coming?”

Rhodey had figured out very quickly that his common ground with Harley was verbally undermining Tony and everything he stood for – in a loving way – so he was not surprised by the kid’s enthusiastic assent to his suggestion. On their way out, more people noticed Rhodey and put his face to War Machine’s name, but Harley caught their gaze and maintained an unblinking, eerie eye contact, which made them all keep their distance.

The dining car was practically empty at that time, so they slid into the first available table and got served very quickly. The second he opened his mouth, Harley immediately spent the good will he’d accrued by scaring away gawkers.

“I want a martini. Shaken, not stirred.”

Rhodey was torn between letting out several loud guffaws and smacking the back of Harley’s head as hard as he could. Their waitress, standing beside the table, seemed taken aback. “I don’t think-”

Rhodey was already shaking his head when she glanced at him. “I know he _looks _seventeen, but trust me, he’s five. He wants a juice.”

She took it in stride, to her credit. “Any particular variety?”

“Mountain Dew?” Haley asked.

“Orange,” Rhodey corrected, just to get on the kid’s nerves.

“So what should I bring you then?” the waitress clarified, far too patiently and politely. Rhodey was impressed and remorseful.

“Mountain Dew,” Harley repeated more firmly.

She turned to Rhodey. “And for your friend?”

Rhodey did not get a chance to answer. “He’s my dad,” Harley explained without so much as an errant blink. Rhodey hid his face behind his palm. “I’m his spitting image, can’t you tell?”

The waitress, on the other hand, blinked with abandon, looking between them bemusedly. If he wasn’t so annoyed, Rhodey might even be entertained, as well as curious to find out whether she’d actually say something. As it was, he only asked for water and let her finally escape them.

Harley stretched and relaxed into his seat, plopping an elbow on the table and his chin on his hand. Rhodey took the opportunity to scrutinize him and mentally catalogue everything he knew about this new kid, now that they’d finally slowed down – he took note of the bags under Harley’s eyes, and the very uncombed way his hair fell over his forehead. The kid must’ve actually driven hours on end on impulse, just like he’d said; the resemblance to the Tony Stark Rhodey had met in college became stronger than ever, along with Rhodey’s mounting consternation.

Then again, Rhodey was having a very bizarre day so far, and this kid was a virtual stranger. There was a slight possibility Rhodey was projecting some of his latest anxiety on him. All he really knew about Harley was: his first name was Harley, he was from Tennessee, Tony knew him, he had a driver’s license, and he hated PE. That was not a lot.

“Hey, kid, what’s your last name?” it suddenly occurred to Rhodey to ask.

“Keener,” Harley Keener replied promptly. “What’s yours?”

“Knowles,” Rhodey replied equally promptly.

“Is Rhodey short for that? ‘Cause that’s what Tony calls you.”

Rhodey suddenly developed a very strong urge to put an end to that conversational branch. The waitress dropped off their drinks without a word; Rhodey really didn’t blame her for trying to avoid talking to them.

He watched Harley chug his cup of liquid sugar and drummed his fingers on the table. “You got an idea for what to do for the next several hours of unchanging train scenery?”

“We’ll just sit here and talk,” Harley said, peering out the window at said scenery. There were indistinguishable trees flashing by. “We can bond over roasting Tony. It was going pretty good earlier, when we were clowning around about how old he was.”

Rhodey let out a pain-filled groan and ran a hand over his face. He didn’t even acknowledge the fact that he’d had the exact same thought process before. “I’m older than him, kid.”

“Oof,” Harley responded with fake sympathy.

“You’re an asshole.”

“It’s illegal to swear in front of minors.”

“I’m good for it, I got court-martialed,” Rhodey said, with far less venom than was warranted by the day’s events. It made Harley laugh for the first time since Rhodey had met him.

“We’re totally bonding,” the kid said, nodding decisively. “Knew this would happen. I’m a very affable person. It took Tony like five minutes.”

Rhodey gave him a weird look and picked up his glass. “Yeah, at some point, I’m gonna wanna know how you even met him. For now, just keep feeding my goodwill over- water and Mountain Dew. I guess. How did my day get here?”

“Well, this morning, you were in New York, feeding an alpaca-” Harley began, but Rhodey actively stopped listening.

* * *

Taking a train to travel from one end of the country to the other turned out to be a terrible idea, which no one could have possibly seen coming. Sleeping would’ve been an ordeal if Rhodey wasn’t accustomed to sleeping in awkward conditions – the rocking of the train disenchanted even Harley from their current circumstances. This was the shorter half of the trip, too, which didn’t bode well for the Chicago-California bit. Harley was very much not the type of kid to comfortably sit still for very long; he became restless the minute he woke up the next morning, and Rhodey had to rescue his leg braces from his fiddling before he installed jet packs on them or something.

“That’s ridiculous, I don’t have any tools on me,” Harley dismissed when Rhodey expressed that to him. “Closest I could get is blowing the braces up.”

“How is that in any way _close_-?”

“Blowing stuff up is fun.”

Rhodey scowled at him and pulled on his boots. “I want breakfast. Get going.”

“Be grateful, any other teenager would still be asleep right now,” Harley complained, shoving Rhodey’s jacket off his hoodie. In the process, something fell out of the jacket pocket – it clinked as it hit the floor, and made Harley stare down. “_Hah_.”

Rhodey glanced over and picked up the Dora the Explorer watch. It did not tell him the time, because it was clearly several years past Dora’s life expectancy.

“You brought that thing?” Harley said, snickering.

“I packed light, as you know,” Rhodey drawled. “I was feeling underdressed.”

He put the watch on. Harley’s grin got wider. “You’re more fun than I was expecting.”

Rhodey gave him a dirty look for the insult and walked out into the car hallway. Harley followed. “You said this was Tony’s. I’m only returning lost property.”

“_Hah_. Can I be there when you give it to him?”

Harley disappeared after breakfast to call Tony, which Rhodey cleverly deduced from the way the kid said, stuffing his last forkful of eggs in his mouth, “I’m gonna go make fun of you on the phone.” He spent the rest of the day trotting up and down the train, telling random strangers he was making a cross-country trip in the company of War Machine. The point, as far as Rhodey understood it, was to see how many people would believe him.

Rhodey withstood two hours of him popping in and out of their room before he locked the door. He fished out his phone, which was only alive courtesy of Harley’s charger. There was a text from Tony: _coming to Malibu with a toothbrush and no swim trunks, bold of you_.

Rhodey typed back ‘_didn’t manage to pack, can you think of why?_’, and stretched himself out on the bottom bunk with the _Times_’ crossword app open.

Tony replied before he got a look at the first clue. _I just figured you were making a fashion statement._

_Who’s Harley?_

Tony did not text anything back to that one. This had happened before – Rhodey had once entertained the thought that Tony had had a child in the height of his reckless days, when he’d properly met Peter. But rationality had kicked in; Tony went overboard with every kid he liked, and Peter immediately proved himself too polite to be his son. Harley was _probably _not his son either, but still, Rhodey was curious.

Once in a while, Rhodey found out about yet another weird, inexplicably secret aspect of Tony’s life. Lately, those were piling up. Every time it happened, Rhodey felt his place in said life get smaller. It was a childish, unworthy emotion and Tony really didn’t deserve it, which meant Rhodey shut up every time it happened and let it fester, growing worse each passing day. It also fed his burning curiosity in an obsessive way, something Tony delighted in provoking.

Talking about it would probably solve Rhodey’s increasingly distressing situation, but hypothesizing was as far as he ever got in that plan.

Harley rapped loudly and suddenly on the door, promising someone on the other side that he was on his way to go see Iron Man. Rhodey decided he was bored of crosswords and thought about taking a nap; he realized with no small amount of horror that he _was _getting old.

* * *

Chicago was less crammed with people than New York, but not by much. And because Rhodey lived in New York and not Chicago, the people staring and gasping were way more excited about it. Harley got bored of scaring them away, too, which meant Rhodey ended up having to stop and chat with a few people who wanted to know everything the Avengers had kept from the public about Thanos and the freak five years. It was hard to answer those questions because what had been kept from the public was pretty much everything.

There was a break of a few hours between their arrival and their next train’s departure, but Harley refused to leave the station because he’d gotten enough ‘big city air’ for the month. He also insisted on finding some place to bring the Dora the Explorer watch back to life, but their search was fruitless, since they weren’t particularly spoilt for choice inside the station. Then, Harley doubled down on his commitment to his Tony Stark cosplay by ordering his fourth cup of coffee of the day at nine in the evening.

“Are you vibrating?” Rhodey asked afterwards, watching Harley. He was currently perched on one of the plastic seats in the station’s waiting area. It was his third seat of the past two minutes, which concerned Rhodey slightly, given that Harley’s backside was not even fully on the chair.

“Might be,” Harley replied very quickly, bringing a hand up to his face and inspecting it closely. “Am I? Could be. I think it’s the caffeine, never had coffee before.”

Rhodey had a sudden coughing fit. “You drank _four _cups today.”

“Yeah, I liked it.”

“The hell is the matter with you? Are you seventeen or nine?”

“What, is four too much? Tony’s my main frame of reference.”

“No, he’s not, you’re just an idiot,” Rhodey said, rolling his eyes. “You’re not gonna sleep a wink tonight.”

“I’ve had energy drinks before,” Harley protested.

“Why do I feel like you’re lying?”

“Because you’re a very perceptive person and also a great judge of character. I’m going on a jog, see you.” Rhodey grabbed Harley’s hoodie and pulled him back into his seat. “Should I get more coffee?” the kid wondered before Rhodey could open his mouth.

“Don’t think so small, they’re selling Red Bull right there.” Harley tried to stand up again, but Rhodey had kept a vice grip in his arm. “Being high on caffeine does not excuse you from understanding sarcasm.”

Harley actually did, in fact, sleep through the night, which completely bemused Rhodey. In fact, he was still immobile way into the next day; Rhodey assumed, from his limited interaction with the kid, that Harley had a somewhat chaotic lifestyle, and blamed the obvious sleep deprivation on that. By the time Harley woke up, Rhodey was pretty sure they’d made it to Colorado.

The kid poked his head out of the bunk to blearily blink down at him. From the lazy way he was moving, he didn’t seem to be too willing to actually lift his head off the mattress. “Is that breakfast?”

“Maybe a late lunch,” Rhodey said, handing him the tray he had next to him.

“Cool. Hey, do people get hungover from caffeine?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t think I like coffee.”

“Yup.”

Harley rolled back over his bed with the tray.

That evening, the dining car was fuller than any other time they’d visited it. It wasn’t the greatest setup, Rhodey thought, squeezing in-between the packed tables, and he kind of wished he had a cap and sunglasses. Too many people were taking note of his face. The noise was grating on his nerves too.

Harley ended up dragging Rhodey to an empty table, right next to two teenage girls whose plates were almost cleared. They barely glanced as Rhodey sat down, but Harley immediately leaned over and struck up conversation.

“Hey, I don’t know what they serve here. What’re you eating? Is it any good?”

“It’s food,” one of the girls said helpfully.

“You’re having whatever comes up first in the menu,” Rhodey said, resolving the issue before Harley could open his mouth again.

The kid shook his head. “I’m allergic to that.”

The girl who hadn’t spoken laughed. Rhodey tuned the kids out and picked up the menu. By the time they ordered, Harley had dragged his chair so close to the two girls that he was basically sitting at their table. One of them was happily chatting with him back and forth, but the other one seemed about as bored as Rhodey. She only interjected once to point out a server who’d dropped a tray full of dirty plates.

Rhodey was just thinking of something to say to embarrass the kid when Harley tugged on his arm to get his attention. “Hey, Rhodey, they’re best friends on an adventure, just like us.”

“First of all, I don’t remember giving you permission to call me Rhodey,” Rhodey said, “and second of all, _no_. To everything you just said.”

“Best friends. So where are you going?” Harley asked the two girls. The friendly one shrugged.

“Dunno,” the other one replied when her friend remained silent. “We’ll get there when we get there.”

“Inspiring,” Harley said. Then, to Rhodey, “Hey, if I annoy them enough, do you think at least one will be into it?”

“We can hear you,” the first girl said while the other one scowled. Rhodey pinched the bridge of his nose so as to pretend he wasn’t feeling as uncomfortable as he was. Somehow, it was far worse to be in this position at Rhodey’s current age than it had been when it was Tony acting the sleaze. “Also, we’re lesbians.”

Harley clicked his fingers. “Pre-judged you too fast. Turns out they’re girlfriends,” he said to Rhodey, again, like Rhodey had any sort of investment in this conversation whatsoever. “I have no chance no matter how much I annoy them.”

The second girl shook her head. “No, we’re still only friends.”

“I’m really learning a valuable lesson about assumptions right now.”

“I’m really regretting the moment I got in that car right now,” Rhodey muttered.

“Too bad, ‘cause now you’re on the train,” Harley retorted unrepentantly. “Can’t back out.”

The girls cocked their heads at them. And suddenly, somehow, for some reason, Harley had made two new friends whose names he didn’t know. Before long, all three teenagers started sharing details personal enough to make even Rhodey pay attention; in the space of ten minutes, he learned more about Harley than he had in the past two days. The kid was into engineering (which Rhodey had guessed), he was a senior (which Rhodey had deduced), and he wanted to get into MIT (which Rhodey could have guessed).

Meanwhile, Rhodey was feeling very out of place. Either those two girls were outliers, or kids these days overshared way more than he had at their age.

“My dad blipped, but now he’s back, you know, because of the Avengers,” the friendly girl – who presumably had a name Rhodey still didn’t know – was saying. Again, she showed no signs of recognizing Rhodey. “Thing is, he’s kind of an ass, so we skipped town.”

“I know this guy who’ll adopt you if you tell him your dad sucks,” Harley suggested, which was the point at which Rhodey felt he had to intervene.

“Yeah, no, his house is at maximum fostering capacity,” he said firmly. Harley pulled a disbelieving expression, but otherwise did not contradict him.

“We should get out wherever you’re getting out, meet your friend,” the friendly girl suggested teasingly. “Where are _you _going?”

“Malibu, California.”

“Oh, no, that’s crazy, that’s way too far away,” the other girl said, backing down immediately.

“Yeah, why the hell are you on a train?”

“Rhodey’s scared of flying,” Harley said.

Rhodey groaned and made a show of checking the time, forgetting he was actually wearing a watch. The sight of his wrist provoked amusement.

“Cool watch, man,” one of the girls said, grinning. “Post-modern fashion?”

“How dare you?” Harley said, faux-outraged. “Dora the Explorer is a _classic_.”

Rhodey looked down at the watch. Dora beamed up at him. “It belongs to a friend.”

“Same friend who adopts everybody,” Harley chimed in.

The girls laughed. “You’ve got a weird friend.”

* * *

“I think those girls from yesterday got out one state ago,” Harley said to Rhodey the next morning, sounding genuinely sad.

Rhodey, who’d busied himself with crosswords again, only vaguely paid any attention to him. “Hmm.”

They were a few minutes away from their final stop, at which point Harley would go back to being Tony’s problem; in the meantime, the kid was more wired than ever. It turned out that being cooped up in a relatively small space for three days did not help with that.

“Man, you are _difficult_,” Harley blurted out. Rhodey looked up at his tone to find him eyeing him balefully.

“In what way?”

Harley scowled. “In an evasive way. Case in point. I thought for sure the two girls yesterday would make you talk.”

Confused, Rhodey finally put down the phone. “What now?”

“We became extremely close friends, shared all sorts of-”

“Do you even know their names?”

“’One’ and ‘two’. But I’m not telling which is which in case it’s rude. Anyway, as I was saying-”

“That’s really okay, you can stop saying things.”

“_No_,” Harley said forcefully. “Tony said lyou’ve been acting weird.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Tony said-”

Rhodey huffed, swung his legs out the bunk and stared up at Harley, whose feet were dangling right in front of him. “I heard you. Why would he say that to you?”

“He was making a point.”

“What point?”

“That you were acting weird.”

Rhodey clicked his tongue and stood up. “Okay, I’m gonna go outside, come back, and pretend you’re mute and always have been. Sound good?

“Well, if you do that, I’ll just end up calling Tony instead, and _he_ doesn’t think I’m mute.”

Rhodey stopped in his tracks. “What’re you doing?”

“Blackmailing the hostage.”

“You’re not holding me hosta-” Rhodey interrupted himself and took a deep breath. “Kid, I get the feeling you’ve got good intentions, whatever it is that’s happening right now, but seriously – what’re you doing?”

Harley scrambled down from his bunk. “Trying to talk about One and Two.”

“What?” Rhodey said, amazed at the nonsense this conversation had birthed so far.

“The girls. We talked a lot yesterday, and-”

“I know, I wasn’t listening-”

Harley scoffed. “Why _not_? Whatever, I’m gonna make an _analogy_, pay attention.”

And suddenly, Rhodey saw, quite clearly, where this was going. He groaned. “Oh no, Keener. I’m leaving. What the hell has Tony even been telling you?”

“Nothing, I’m just super shrewd.”

It occurred to Rhodey right then that he was the adult in this conversation. Harley was frowning at him in socks and an oversized hoodie, a strained crease between his brows. This was the same kid who’d dragged Rhodey out of Tony’s house and had apparently been attempting to manipulate him for three days – thoughtful in a morally ambiguous sort of way. _Apparently_, Rhodey thought, Tony’s face swimming into his mind’s eye, _that’s a quality I appreciate in people._

He sat down, finally focused, and crossed his arms. “What’s going on with you, Harley?”

The kid blinked. “Sorry?”

“What kind of kid does all of _this _–” Rhodey gestured vaguely around – “out of some weird third party concern for- uh-?”

Harley pulled a face. “Don’t shame my issues, everyone’s got some. It’s your turn.”

“Fine,” Rhodey nodded. “And what issues do you think I have, exactly?”

Harley hesitated over Rhodey’s trap, which was sort of the reaction Rhodey had been expecting. But then the kid sat down and crossed his arms too, so Rhodey braced himself.

“You know what sometimes sucks, about home?” Harley said with the tone of someone commenting on the weather. “Nobody talks about anything. My mother would rather pretend something isn’t there than say something- _vulnerable_. The nurses didn’t even know my sister and me had ever existed when we showed up.”

Rhodey started. “What nurses?”

“My sister and I blipped. Mom didn’t. She got sick a few weeks after it happened, and she’s been bedridden five years now.”

Rhodey softened despite himself. “Sorry, kid. It’s been terrible for everybody.”

“Yeah, I know.” Harley nodded, scuffing the floor. “She didn’t deal so well with being on her own. And she’s really bad at talking about anything that people might use to hurt her. So it was extra terrible when everyone was gone. She’s so much better now, so her nurse says. I know Tony’s been helping her with medical expenses. Mom’s got some of the best doctors in the country and he made sure she didn’t even have to move away from home.”

Rhodey exhaled heavily and felt a rush of affection toward his best friend. “Tony sometimes forgets to be inconsiderate. What about your dad?”

“He had better stuff to do than sticking around. I’m guessing. Never actually got a chance to ask him.”

“Ah,” Rhodey groaned. “This makes a lot of sense, all of a sudden.”

Harley blinked at him and found a packet of cookies to stuff in his face. “What does?”

“Tony and- you.” Rhodey gestured vaguely at the kid and left it at that.

Harley gave him a look, waved his hand around with a cookie in it, and got crumbs all over his hoodie. “Anyway, dad’s irrelevant. My point is, mom never talked about us. In five years, she never mentioned to anyone she’d had two kids. And that sucks. For her, mostly, ‘cause we weren’t here. Tony can be the same way sometimes. He doesn’t _say _stuff.”

“I know.”

“Dunno if you do,” Harley said critically. “See, the reason he invited you out to Malibu is so he wouldn’t have to say ‘hey, come hang out with me, I love you’, except less lame. But still with the ‘I love you’, that’s important.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “I know how Tony works, thanks.”

“Okay, then, it’s your turn.”

“To?”

“To _share_, wise guy. I said some stuff, now you say some stuff. Remember what I said about how much it sucks when people don’t talk?”

Rhodey stared at this dumbass kid of Tony’s for a few seconds, thinking about Dora the Explorer watches and the two girls catching a train to get their minds off an asshole dad; and then he snapped.

“What should I say that you haven’t already sleuthed out? Weren’t you just bragging about how shrewd you are?”

“You’ve been- standoffish the whole time. Excuse me for wanting you to speak for yourself.”

Rhodey gaped at that. “You’re _seventeen_. Aren’t you supposed to be hungover seventy per cent of the time and drinking the other thirty?”

“That’s a completely outdated stereotype.”

Rhodey cleared his throat, ran a hand through his hair, and – out of the blue – blurted out something he never thought he’d say, and especially not in front of a random kid he’d met a couple of days previous. “I just- don’t know how much room there is in his life anymore. For me.”

Harley gawked at him. “Tony never told me you’re tremendously _stupid_.”

“_Kid_-”

Rhodey scowled, but Harley jumped up and started pacing with a burst of unexpected energy, so whatever he’d been about to say got stuck somewhere in his throat. The kid had a cookie in his mouth, which sort of undermined the seriousness of his position. Rhodey forced himself to listen anyway. “You seriously think Tony doesn’t need you anymore just because he’s got a kid? He got himself an _alpaca_.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Pepper’s always been better at managing his stupidity than me.”

“Where would I be if I was worried about whatshisname, the New York kid Tony’s been hanging out with?” Harley pointed out, switching arguments.

“You mean Peter?”

Harley snapped his fingers. “That’s it. _Hey_, now I get your boy-who-cried-wolf joke from a couple of days ago.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah. Anyway, it’s a moot point, Peter’s nowhere as cool as me,” he dismissed immediately, apparently getting sidetracked from his own lecture. “I’m from Tennessee. There’s nothing remotely interesting about him.”

From this, Rhodey surmised Harley was not aware of Spider-Man’s identity. “Yeah, you have no issues whatsoever with whatshisname.”

“I’m only kidding, c’mon,” Harley said, waving him off. “I’m trying to make a point here.”

“Really? Hadn’t noticed.”

“Okay, I wasn’t gonna do this, but you’ve forced my hand,” Harley threatened. “I’m gonna use a metaphor.”

“Ugh.”

Harley cleared his throat, which just made it worse, and then said, “I bet that girl with the shit dad wouldn’t have gotten on the train without her friend.”

The thing was, before Rhodey started backing Tony up by getting into a metal suit that could fly after him, he’d already been in his life. It used to be that the two of them were a team; before Pepper, before the Avengers, before all these inexplicable children in his life. Nowadays, Rhodey often felt like the last guest to arrive at all the parties Tony was throwing by himself. Iron Man had been the biggest thing to blindside him just when Rhodey thought Tony couldn't surprise him anymore. The first piece of the puzzle that didn't fit anywhere.

As far as he knew, Rhodey knew Tony the longest, from all the way back when his biggest problem had been whatever fight he’d gotten into with his father. He wasn’t quite sure he’d ever gotten on a train in Tony’s company, but Rhodey still remembered every time he’d needed to distract him from his own spiraling thoughts, just by being there. He'd thought that meant Rhodey knew Tony best. That was probably what Harley was driving at.

There was a long silence, at the end of which Rhodey sighed very loudly. Harley seemed to take that as capitulation, because he immediately preened. “I’m _good_. I should become a therapist. Totally fixed all your problems by using only my cleverest-”

“By trapping me in a train.”

“Which I managed because of how clever I am, shut up.”

Rhodey snorted and leaned back against the wall. He was feeling inexplicably drained. “Tony’s my best friend. It’s just… He has a family now, and I can’t just – and would never-”

Harley didn’t let him finish. “I live in Tennessee, and Tony still makes time for me. I’m having a lot of trouble believing he doesn’t make time for his best friend who basically shares a zip code with him.”

“He does. I’m the problem here, not him,” Rhodey admitted. Harley hummed. “By the way, your frame of reference is way off, New York is _huge _and we do not share a zip code-”

“You’re missing my point.”

“No, I’m not, I’m just trying to derail it.” Rhodey said, but conceded anyway. “I get it, Harley, loud and clear.”

“Oh, good. I was running out of arguments.” Harley started as the train slowed down, and a bodiless voice announced their stop. They’d arrived in California.

Rhodey clapped his shoulder, grabbed the kid’s bag, and gestured toward the door. “You’re a good kid,” he said. “You remind me of Tony, except he was graduating MIT at your age.”

Harley huffed, following Rhodey out. “Yeah, we’re dealing with _your _inadequacies, no need to drag _mine_ into it.”

“It’s a compliment, you discolored smurf.”

“I have no idea why you just called me that.”

“Dunno, Tony’s short,” Rhodey explained with a shrug.

“Logical,” Harley praised. “So that’s why you’ve been so agreeable to this whole kidnapping thing? Because I remind you of Tony?”

Rhodey scoffed. “You did not kidnap me.”

“Kinda did.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“This isn’t gonna be a thing,” Rhodey groaned. “Not doing it.”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“I kidnapped War Machine.”

“There it is.”

“I did it.”

“Stop.”

* * *

Rhodey was very direct upon arrival.

“I know about the precocious toddler and the doe-eyed little shit, but when did you adopt John Bender?”

Tony was in his workshop, something his beach house had required, naturally, because even on vacation he wasn’t on vacation. Peter was keeping him company, visibly as enthused about wasting time on Tony's version of relaxation as Tony himself. They appeared to be tinkering with some version of the new Captain America shield – Tony was attentively studying a hologram the shield was projecting, and Peter was laying on the ground, nose practically pressed to the circuitry. Both of them looked up at Rhodey’s words.

Tony immediately grinned and came over to pat Rhodey on the back and pull Harley into a hug. Peter just stared at the other teenager like he was trying to place him, or otherwise size him up.

Harley's face screwed up, but he returned Tony's hug. “Who the hell is John Bender?”

Whatever was in Peter’s hands clattered. One of the holograms on the shield vanished. “You’ve never watched _The Breakfast Club_, whoever you are?!”

“Oh, you're the new kid. So the guy's a character in some movie from the stone age. Gotcha.”

A lightbulb went off in Rhodey's head. All weekend, there had been a nagging thought buried deep in Rhodey’s subconscious telling him he’d seen Harley’s face before – suddenly, looking between him and Peter, Rhodey could place where the thought was coming from. He took in Harley in a completely different light. “You were at the _funeral_.”

“You're _Harley_,” Peter realized at the exact same time.

Harley saluted them lazily. “Sorry for not introducing myself that day. You seemed busy and depressed.”

“You were at my funeral?” Tony said, surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Harley wouldn’t meet his eyes when he answered. “Pepper invited me. I’m sorry, are you going around discussing your funeral with everyone who attended? Because I promise, no one had that much fun.”

Tony cuffed the back of his head and then kept his hand there, letting it fall to the kid’s shoulder. “Then you obviously did it wrong.”

Peter’s face was falling further with every word out of everyone’s mouth. “Can we change the subject?”

“_Please_,” Rhodey agreed, knowing his expression had turned wooden.

“Jeez, you're all so sensitive. Who died?”

Rhodey glowered, Harley scowled, and Peter turned away and sulked. It was that one that got to Tony.

“_Alright_,” he said hastily, putting his hands up. “No more jokes about my premature demise.”

“You’re still doing it,” Rhodey muttered. Tony looked at him like he had no idea what he was talking about.

While Harley wandered over to Peter to take a look at whatever he was doing, Rhodey followed Tony to his desk, easily identifiable by the pictures of Morgan littering every available surface. Thinking about Harley’s advice to ‘_talk about things_’, he pulled the Dora watch out of his pocket. “Where’s my godchild?” he asked, looking around. “I have something for her.”

Tony’s eyes zeroed in on the watch and narrowed. He threw Harley a dirty look, and the kid shrugged in response, calling back, “My sister outgrew it.”

“Morgan’s not into Dora the Explorer,” Tony declared.

“It’s pink _and_ bilingual, so that’s a bold-faced lie,” Peter disagreed immediately, also catching sight of the watch. “What do you have against Dora the Explorer?”

“She’s absolutely no help whatsoever in kidnapping situations. Found that out the hard way,” Tony replied darkly. Peter stared at him.

“You don’t want me telling the new kid the story behind the watch, do you?” Harley deduced shrewdly. Tony glared.

“Quit calling me ‘the new kid’,” Peter protested distractedly. “What story?”

“The story of how Tony and I met,” Harley replied with flair and a meaningful look in Rhodey’s direction, who rolled his eyes. Harley did not elaborate, and neither did Tony, so Peter huffed to express his disappointment and returned to the shield.

Tony scrutinized Rhodey as soon as the kids stopped listening. “I’m missing something.”

Rhodey hesitated, and then shook his head. He handed Tony the watch and clapped his shoulder. “I just didn’t want you to be separated from one of your most prized possessions for any longer.”

“This is what friends do?” Tony demanded, but he took the watch and clasped it on his own wrist. “Make a mockery of me and my traumatic experiences?”

“Dora was involved in a traumatic experience?”

“Didn't I tell you that story? Probably skipped this part.”

“Probably.”

“Alright, sit down, storytelling is an experience,” Tony declared, rolling a chair from behind a table cluttered with espresso cups and actual physical books made of paper, which Rhodey wasn’t aware Tony owned.

He sat and plopped his feet on the desk for good measure. Tony seemed tense, somehow, rooting around for something to fiddle with; before he had a chance to start rambling, Rhodey said, sincerely, “Thanks for inviting me out here. Seriously.”

“Yeah, and it was rude of you to say no,” Tony replied, relaxing immediately. “Thank god at least one of the brats has no scruples.”

“Don’t kid yourself. Parker’s the only one with scruples, and you’re wearing him down.”

“Did Harley really kidnap you?”

“It’s up for interpretation.”

Tony laughed, because he heard that as a yes, like Rhodey knew he would. Now that he’d made sure the question of whether Rhodey actually wanted to be there had a firmly ambiguous answer, Tony moved on to finally telling him a story Rhodey had been wondering about for days now. Apparently, one of those times Tony had been presumed dead, he’d ended up in Tennessee and met a precocious child with a potato gun. In his head, Rhodey immediately began calling him _Harley_ before Tony had to name him.

“Just out of curiosity,” Rhodey said when Tony was finished, “are there any _more _kids that I don’t know about?”

“Not right now, but check back daily. Hey,” he said, changing tone abruptly, “you alright?”

Rhodey glanced at him. “Because I’ve ‘been acting weird’?”

Tony was clearly unrepentant. “Yeah.”

Rhodey smiled at him. “I’m good. Harley’s a nice kid.”

“Awesome. Now that we’ve sorted that out, Pepper’s been pinging me to go up for lunch for like twenty minutes now, so we should probably go tell her we need food for two extra people.”

Peter chose that moment to make something crack and then flare up immediately; the noise it made was so loud, it made Tony and Rhodey jump to their feet. With a yelp, the kid leapt backwards and dragged Harley with him, who possessed no superpowers and had merely jerked back a little. Peter might have passed it off as great reflexes if the scare hadn’t propelled him into the wall, where he was stuck to by the tips of his fingers and toes. Harley goggled up at him, sprawled on the floor and too stunned to get up.

Tony was frozen in place. Rhodey gave a single nod. “You have nothing under control.”

“That’s why you’re here, buddy,” Tony replied automatically. The piece of machinery that had shot off Peter’s project device was still smoldering a few feet away from his feet.

Harley wasn’t going to stay silent for long. “I thought you said he wasn’t interesting. _How is this not interesting?_”

“Who said what?” Peter exclaimed, dropping down on his toes and visibly affronted.

“That was you who said that, Keener,” Rhodey pointed out, strolling over to offer the kid a hand. “Up you get, c’mon.”

“Okay,” Tony said, clapping his hands. He was eyeing Peter with the look of someone who wanted to roll his eyes in exasperation but needed a better excuse. “So, someone needs to give Harley the secrecy talk, someone needs to go up and give Pepper a hand, and someone needs to clean that up, starting with putting out the fire.”

Rhodey calmly reached over for the fire extinguisher that was usually in DUM-E’s mechanical claws, and dosed the metal until it stopped smoking. Harley, who still seemed shaken and unable to take his eyes off Peter, followed him out of the workshop when Rhodey beckoned for him. “C'mon kid. Tony, I’m taking the sarcasm, you keep the sass.”

“You really should have saved that for our wedding vows, Rhodey, or at least for the prenup,” Tony called after him, helping Peter inspect the remains of their science experiment for anything salvageable.

Rhodey ignored Tony and clapped a hand on Harley’s shoulder. “Let’s go, kid, Pepper’s gonna be mad at Tony. It’s more fun to listen to her shout at him if she’s not shouting at you too.”

Harley found his voice again. “_Whatshisname is_ _Spider-Man_?”


End file.
